McMahon reviews Bowlby's ‘Forty-four juvenile thieves’ from several perspectives. First, as history, he examines the context in which Bowlby was writing, where Labour Party nationalization was blamed for a lack of respect for ownership and a presumed rise in juvenile crime. The second is the current lack of respect for the problems of young people, where the age of criminal responsibility has been lowered from fourteen to ten years old, representing a punitive approach to the problems of the young. Third, McMahon sees Bowlby's recommendations for the care of young people by the entire community as a problem of sociology and economics, poverty and bad housing as highly relevant for today. McMahon cites Bowlby as evidence for a needed reversal of current sensibilities; that in fact we need to understand a little more and condemn a little less. Finally, McMahon views Bowlby through the lens of his own personal experience of being brought up in the punitive care system himself.